The process of buying a property in England is getting slower. Even putting aside the uncertainty of the past few years nowadays the average transaction is taking 133 days compared to 104 days just four years ago, agents will be aware.

The fact that the process is full of necessary steps that protect consumers can be lost on those looking to buy or sell.

The complexity involved often jars with the emotion of buying a new home when the desire to move is confounded by confusion and delays.

This frustration can also be felt by the property professionals paving the way. Especially the many owner-operated estate agents who need their pipeline to flow as smoothly as possible.

At the moment, the selling fees for agents are taking ever longer to reach their revenue line – and fixed costs are only increasing and the cost-of-living crisis and high interest rates are further fuelling buyer uncertainty.

All this paints a tough picture for agents. Which means we need to unlock the value sitting within the buying chain – and the answer lies in creating more certainty and removing delays.

INFORMATION

One of the biggest levers we can pull to speed up transactions is to collect and share the right information at the start of the process.

Let’s break it down. Conveyancer enquiries only begin when all the right data is available. Collecting the information and going back and forth with questions often makes up much of those ‘average’ 133 days – so it makes sense to focus here. Crucially, we found that by ordering the searches at the point of listing it’s possible to save four-to-six weeks.

If conveyancers can ask deal-breaking questions right at the start then the whole chain understands whether a sale is able to progress.

If the contract pack and all the baseline information is ready from the outset – and available to all who need it – then the whole process can complete in eight weeks, or even less. More importantly, this timeframe is within the mover’s control.

SCOTLAND

Let’s take Scotland as an example: the barriers are fewer and the time to buy can be as little as six-to-eight weeks. To list a property the Home Report is required upfront (except for new build homes) and potential purchasers must appoint a solicitor to make an offer. Crucially, all the right information and people are together at the start.

It seems the potential for change is huge.

In our own experience, agents in Scotland have more than 90% surety of a transaction which is primarily driven by their different way of working.

At the core of this strategy is existing technology that enables closer collaboration.”

At the core of this strategy is existing technology that already enables closer collaboration between property professionals in another part of the process.

In practice, it is based upon a secure platform that allows lenders to upload “lender instruction” documents which can be passed within seconds to another party – such as a surveyor – and responded to in the same system.

As these existing technologies support richer document types and multi-media. It has become possible to share ever more data across the estate agency, lending and conveyancing sectors.

The technology is here and I believe the market has the desire for change – we now have a chance to embrace it.

Ben Robinson is Managing Director of Landmark Estate Agency Services